VISUALS: Maneater at the Met

Metropolitan Museum of Art "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living"

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the museum, it's awash in metaphors.

No, really.

The formerly notorious Damien Hirst tank installation called "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" arrived at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last fall for a temporary (three-year) stay.

It's still ghastly and hard to ignore, even after nine years. The piece had its U.S. debut in 1999 in "Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection" at the Brooklyn Museum.

This was the show -- it had an African-American madonna icon adorned with jeweled lumps of elephant poop -- that turned then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani into a frothing Bible-Belt reactionary.

Today, you look at the big dead tiger shark and think: What sharp teeth ... and look at all that sushi wastefully marinating in formaldehyde. Hirst, too outrageous in those days for eminent venues, has matured.

Last year, for a reported $100 million, he made a cunning little table-top bauble for the collector who has everything. It was a human skull cast in platinum and paved with 8,601 diamonds.

Hirst is rather well-represented on the East Side this winter. Thirty blocks south of the Metropolitan, his "School: The Archeology of Lost Desires, Comprehending Infinity and the Search for Knowledge" (all his titles are a breath-and-a-half long) occupies the whole glass-walled ground floor of the Lever House.

This $10 million piece is about 20 times more ambitious than the shark. It's got 30 dead sheep in cases, plus 300 links of intestinal-looking sausage, a couple of sides of beef and a lot of cabinetry full of common prescription drugs.

Suspicious of the medical/pharmaceutical/insurance nexus? "School" is your kind of place. It's up through Feb. 16. Visit metmuseum.org for more information.